Botnets: The Dangerous Side Effects Of The Internet Of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the name given to describe the relatively new technology that connects everyday objects and devices to the web to provide additional data or functionality. But in the race to create that next “it” product that no one can live without (smart fry pans anyone?), manufacturers and users are creating dangerous side effects known as botnets.

The term botnet simply means a group of internet-connected devices controlled by a central system. But the term is most often used in conjunction with a particular type of malicious hacking, especially Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS attacks). In this case, a hacker uses a large botnet group of internet-connected devices to flood a website or network resource with fake requests so that legitimate users cannot access it.

By using a botnet with hundreds or even thousands of devices, all with their own unique IP addresses, the hacker makes it almost impossible to stop the attack or distinguish legitimate users from fake ones.

Now, botnets are not new. Since as early as 2000, hackers have been using botnets by gaining access to unsecured devices (usually computers then) in order to create these DDoS attacks. But the Internet of Things has made the problem much worse.

The market has been flooded with inexpensive devices — webcams, baby monitors, thermostats, and yes, even yoga mats and fry pans — that connect to the Internet, each of which has its own IP address. But these devices have little or no built-in security, and even when they do, users often neglect to even take the basic step of setting a password for them.

That makes them easy targets for hackers wanting to create and use a botnet.

In October of 2016, a botnet comprised of an estimated 100,000 unsecured IoT devices took an integral Internet infrastructure provider, Dyn, partially offline. As a result, many high-profile and high-traffic websites, including Netflix and Twitter, disappeared from the Internet for a short time.

The botnet that accomplished this feat was created with malware called Mirai that automates the process of coopting these unsecured devices — and is publicly available. In other words, this wasn’t some genius hacker writing a new and innovative bit of code, but rather someone putting what already exists to new uses. And all those many devices that were infected with Mirai? They will continue to be able to be used until the owners throw them out.

DDoS attacks like this aren’t the only ways in which botnets can be used by hackers. They can be used to perpetrate click fraud (defrauding online advertising services which pay by the click), evade spam filters, speed up password guessing, mine Bitcoins, or really anything else that would require a large network of computers working together.

In fact, it’s something of an open secret that criminal organizations can rent time on a botnet to perform whatever task they like.

The best solution would be to ensure that all IoT devices run on secure software, but the likelihood of that is slim. Most IoT devices aren’t designed with security in mind (who cares if someone sees the data from your fry pan, right?) and have no way of being patched to add additional security. And there are millions of devices already in use and being made and sold.

Because the use and manufacture of IoT devices are expected to grow exponentially over the next few years, the problem of botnets is also likely to grow. And the security measures we have that are at least somewhat effective against them now, will quickly be outwitted and outmoded by the attackers.

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand t...